Follow the omens

Do you believe in omens? Signs from the universe?

Every few years I read "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho.  I remember my first time through, years ago.  I wondered what all the talk of omens meant.  I sure wanted to believe that I could somehow follow a trail of omens to my destiny.  But how would I do it? Would these omens be something I would need to learn to conjure up?  Attract like "The Secret"? Whatever that means.  Why wasn't I lucky enough to have signs popping up around me, to show me I was on the right path? Or...could it be I wasn't quite understanding the concept?

Years later (and a whole bunch of books, life experience and new knowledge later) I got it.  It's not as literal as I originally thought.  You have to tune in.  You have to become aware.  You have to notice.  You can't brush them off.  They are there.  They are every bit as magical.

Deepak Chopra talks a lot about something similar, called syncrodestiny.  The coincidences of the universe.

"When a coincidence arises, don’t ignore it. Ask yourself, What is the message here? What is the significance of this? You don’t need to go digging for the answers. Ask the question, and the answers will emerge. They may arrive as a sudden insight, a spontaneous creative experience, or they may be something very different. Perhaps you will meet a person who is somehow related to the coincidence that occurred. An encounter, a relationship, a chance meeting, a situation, a circumstance will immediately give you a clue to its meaning. “Oh, so that’s what it was all about!”

The key is to pay attention and inquire.

I wanted neon signs with my name and and arrow signs, but if we're searching for something of that magnitude we don't see the our real guideposts.  

I have tuned in.  I have opened up.  I am listening.  I am slowing down and noticing.  In doing so over many months, I can tell you that we've got a great relationship, the universe and I.  She leaves me love notes to both teach and confirm what I know.  And she reminds me when I forget.  If we let the universe show us the way every day, we can't possibly go wrong.  

It is true that the greatest things we'll ever learn are love, self respect, that we are exactly enough just as we are, and that the greatest pilgrimage we'll ever make is within our own body.

Last year (my dark and dismal year) I started to take notice of peacocks.  Peacocks everywhere I looked.  On tv, online, on merchandise, painted on walls, in real life.  It got strange.  Really strange.  Okay, I thought.  I'm listening.  I wonder what they're trying to tell me? I looked up the symbolism of a peacock, and wouldn't you know it.  Renewal.  Resurrection.  A phoenix.  Spirituality.  AWAKENING.  And if you know me or follow me here then you'd know just how much that pertained to what I went through and how I'd describe the most trying and life changing year I'd ever had.  

One day last summer I was outside on a run, and out of nowhere on the sidewalk was this (just when I needed it more than you could know):

Something else happened that was so obvious.  So blatant.  I couldn't not see it as a sign.  It has to do with a name, but I'm keeping this one to myself.  

The one that really makes our jaws drop, happened right after my Grandpa died.  I was leaving Southern Utah a day after the funeral and on the way out my Grandma asked me if I wanted to take a box of candles.  My sweetheart loves candles so I said okay.  I took the big brown box and we put it in the car.  It smelled of my childhood home.  I brought it inside and it sat on the kitchen counter for a few days.  We all discussed my grandma.  At their age and after being partners for so long it can by typical for the other to pass shortly after losing their spouse.  We all wondered, would this happen with my Grandma? 

I had given them new nicknames and for the last few months I would refer to them as Tiny Brown or Little Brown and Mr. Shuffles when I would talk about them with my sweetheart or parents. One day, my sweetheart and I are sitting at the kitchen table and we can't believe we haven't noticed what the candle box says:

If you ask me, it doesn't get any more personal than that.  Her nickname.  And a message that her life is far from over.  

Two weeks ago I found this on the ground:

And today on a wall that was blank yesterday was:

For awhile I've been entertaining some thought about what I've jokingly called to my close friends and family, "quitting the biz".  Am I serious? Do I really want to give up acting? Kind of.  Hang on, let me explain.  I will never quit, but I do want more in my life.  I have too many other parts left waiting to be fueled.  And boy, they are hungry.  I'm suddenly craving adding more in and being okay with taking time away from.  But I also know how important it is to go with the flow.  To be open.  To have a plan but to be adaptable.  To follow the omens.  

The omens have shown me in huge and surprising ways that it's not meant for me to be announcing my "quitting" anytime soon.  From three theatres contacting me for various things at once, to my dream project that had only been a fantasy all but two weeks ago, to being recognized (as an actress) when I was in a place trying to get the ball rolling for the next new adventure in my life.  

And last but not least, a friend who had no idea I felt this way wrote me a message telling me he'd had a dream I wanted to quit and he was sent from the future telling me I wasn't supposed to.  

And then there is the number.  After my grandpa died I slipped back into a bad way...for a few days.  That's all I allowed myself.  I decided I needed to live.  I needed to go forward.  I needed to go on.  If I didn't, my sadness would eat me alive.  I would be gone.  So suddenly I did.  

And I have been okay.  I have been better than okay.  

As the year ended and the new one began, everything finally feels aligned! Things are right.  Things are in place.  Things are clear.  And during this time I started seeing a number.  The same number, everywhere.  Even more than the peacock.  It was starting to drive me crazy because I couldn't figure out what it meant.  Long story short this number is associated with a God of Healing.  My healing has been happening as I've been seeing this number everywhere.  

I've seen it less the more progress I made.

Now, I do find that a scientific truth about the world we live in is more magical to me than any religious story.  The amazements we can prove in discovering our own universe is far bigger and exciting to me than an organized religion with a god.  However, I believe that all religion is true.  What is your truth, is your truth.  What is my truth is my truth.  What his or hers is his or hers, etc.  We have no idea what each others journeys are about.  Who is anyone to tell another their truth is right or wrong? 

"If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it? - Yann Martel 

One thing I like about getting older is the need to explain yourself to others goes away.  You can finally just put it all out there and know that it is what you offer, and that it is enough. 

But despite anything that may be proven (as of right now), there are still things that can't be explained.  The omens being one.  

Could I have read too much into these? Could coincidence be just that and nothing more? Maybe.  Sure.  But I am going to choose to believe in taking notice.  In following my omens.  If it helps me to get to my final destination with a little more comfort, so be it.  

I'll see you at the end and I'll be able to tell you I have indeed enjoyed the journey.  

"We are all just walking each other home" - Ram Dass

This is the one of several joint blog / shared topics with JayC Stoddard.  It's amazing how our blogs on the same subject are so different, so similar, and so complimentary to the other persons.  Every time.  Coincidence? You be the judge: JAYC STODDARD his blog is brilliant, you should follow it :) 

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My life in pictures 

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A series of goodbyes with stolen moments

Life is a series of goodbyes with stolen moments.  
The stolen moments are to be cherished.  


I am full to the brim.  Bursting at the seams, swirling with memories.  I can hardly sleep or eat because they're so busy in me.  Fragments coming up to the surface all through the day, and in my dreams at night.  Calling to me.  Frantic for me to write them out.  It's hard to know where to begin.

I've started work this week on a project that has been a dream come true.  Another example that "what you seek is seeking you."  Make a plan, but be adaptable.  Let the universe show you the way every day.  I'm in the midst of co - creating a mixed media performance piece at The Leonardo.  I get to use my own words, my original ideas, incorporate my favorite music and pieces of poems and novels.  It's what I've been aching for, for so long.  And it's here.  And it's happening.  And it's just the beginning.  Mixing and making magic of science and love.   

I can't shut off my brain right now.  I never want to leave our meetings.  I am full of ideas.  Of visions.  I could do this all day.  I have been immersed in words and images and I'm finding that this kind of creating cracks me open.  In a good way.  In a right and welcome way.  Bits of my life, my childhood, my family, my experiences will be laid bare and made beautiful onstage.  The timing is perfect.

I have also been able to reflect this last week on my life, currently, and what it is I have.  I have a deeper understanding of my own relationship as we've begun to dissect and discuss LOVE.  I've always known I was lucky, but I'm not sure I knew just how lucky.  Two people trying to fit together is hard enough, let alone easily.  How do we ever find anyone we fit with? How do we find someone that not only fits us, but enhances us? And have it come easy?

Timing really is everything, isn't it? And what you do with time? If you stick something out, if you walk away.

But what are the odds that in all of the cosmos at any given time you can meet your person.  Your person out there in the cosmos that will magically fit with you.  Your puzzle piece.  The one that really fits, not the one you force.  What determines when fate blows you their way, or them yours? Why do I get to experience that? Why am I one of the lucky ones? Why doesn't everyone get this?

Those who came before him weren't bad people, they just simply weren't a fit, or were on my path at the wrong time.

But why? I don't know.

I can feel it.  It's visceral.  The gathering of those past, present, and yet to come.  Isn't it interesting that we travel through time and space, collecting our people along the way? Not just lovers, or a love in the romantic sense, but we build our family.  We find our dog.  We find our cat.  We find our best friends.  We find those in the connected by blood category that we have extra special bonds with.  One day we meet our child.

And how do we seem to find the right ones? What are the odds we meet people who become best friends? How come sometimes we know it instantly? You! You are mine.  My people.  What are the chances or the reason behind me walking into a certain place on a certain day and finding my pup, Noodles? Picking the pup who I'd bond with beyond what I ever could have anticipated.  Knowing there's someone I was meant to be with in that little five pound body.  Sometimes seeing a wise sage I've known before, other times seeing my baby.  My child.  A soulmate.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say, other than I'm just thinking about all of this right now and wondering how and why.

And thinking about how none of it can be kept.  Nothing can be.  It is all so fleeting.  You get to be mine and I get to be yours but just for a minute.  That minute may be a year, it may be twelve, it may be until one of us is gone from the earth. It won't last.

We can only experience each other in ages.  In phases.  In stages.  Until we become something else.  Until a different type of people is needed, we evolve together, we meet at the wrong time and keep searching, or our physical body expires.

We meet in the midst of our big, long goodbye.
And such is life.  And so it goes.
There are just these stolen moments sprinkled throughout when it times out just right. Notice them.  Feel them.  Really, feel them.  Appreciate them.

Because it's just for a second.

Hang on.

Then let go...


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My life in pictures

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Welcome to a new year, a fresh start, a clean slate.
I feel like I've just hatched from an egg!
Things feel better already, don't they?

"Begin today. Declare out loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy." 

I'm finally using the Instagram I started (one year ago today) regularly.
I've posted several pics from last nights New Years Eve celebration.  That was the first NYE in years I've spent with my family rather than friends.  Tradition is important, but so is NEW.  So we combined the two.  We made reservations at our favorite New Years restaurant, the same one we've been to for years, only this time with the family.  Then came back to our house.  It was perfect.

The state I was in coming out of / entering a new year last year was toxic.  This year is completely opposite.  I've realized now that if your rebirth is in chaos and negativity you set yourself right up for a downward spiral.

Today I was born in lightness.  In air.  In happiness.


I wrote one last blurb of the year on my facebook yesterday:

An ending & a beginning: If you know me or follow my blog, then you know that 2012 was the worst year of my life. I am so glad that in a matter of hours 2012 will no longer exist, and that I made it through! There really is no way out, but through. I came out transformed. It was my 365 day crash course in life's hardest lessons. It was the year of loss and impossible goodbyes, but also the year of the soul. I found lessons in everything and grew more in a short time than I would have thought possible. It was the start of a major transformation and rebirth. I leap into the new year a new person. Nice to meet you, universe. 2013 is my time to dig deeper into the unexplored parts of myself that I've left waiting. It's time to fuel my spiritual scientist. It's the year to create, in all ways. To express in new mediums. To share my words further, and to learn all I can. To follow the lead each time my heart pulls me toward something. To remember I am responsible for my own happiness and happiness is something I can chose each new day. I am so grateful to embark with my family connected to each other. 

Goodbye. Hello. Forward...forward now. ♥